RASC News Agency: In the realist tradition of international relations, regimes built on ideological consolidation and internal power preservation often evolve into safe havens for non-state actors groups that are used as proxy instruments to advance security and geopolitical objectives while simultaneously allowing rulers to maintain “plausible deniability” before the international community. An analytical article published in Eurasia Review argues that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, following the group’s return to power in August 2021, has become a clear example of this political-security model.
The article’s author, Numra Khalil, contends that what the Taliban presented in the Doha Agreement as guarantees of “stability” has, in practice, transformed into an extensive structure for tolerating, hosting, and facilitating extremist networks a reality that neighboring countries increasingly view not as a theoretical concern, but as a direct threat to national security, regional stability, and civilian lives.
According to the analysis, developments on the ground seriously undermine the Taliban’s official narrative. Reports issued by the United Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team in July 2025 and February 2026 concluded that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan remains a “permissive environment” for groups such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda, and ISIS-Khorasan. The reports explicitly state that Taliban claims asserting that “no terrorist groups operate from Afghanistan’s soil” lack credibility and are considered unreliable.
Eurasia Review notes that Pakistan has borne the heaviest cost of this situation. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan referred to in the article as “Fitna al-Khawarij” has reportedly regrouped across Afghanistan’s border regions after years of Pakistani military operations. The group is estimated to maintain between 6,000 and 6,500 fighters in the provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost, Paktika, and Paktia.
The 2026 Global Terrorism Index indicates that Pakistan recorded 1,139 terrorism-related deaths in 2025, making it one of the world’s most heavily affected countries by militant violence the highest level recorded since 2013.
According to the same report, the TTP alone was responsible for 595 attacks that killed 637 people, accounting for 56 percent of all terrorism-related fatalities in Pakistan. The article emphasizes that these cross-border attacks targeted security forces, state institutions, and civilians alike, turning 2024 and 2025 into some of Pakistan’s deadliest years in more than a decade.
The analysis also examines Islamabad’s response, arguing that after repeated Taliban denials and worsening security threats, Pakistan launched what it described as “precision airstrikes” against TTP hideouts inside Afghanistan in February 2026. Pakistani officials have repeatedly warned at the United Nations that Afghanistan has once again become a “safe haven for terrorist organizations.”
In another section, the article sharply criticizes the Taliban’s record on governance and human rights. The author argues that since returning to power, the Taliban have established what is described as “the world’s most extreme system of gender apartheid.” The ban on girls’ secondary education, first imposed in March 2022, has now entered its fifth year, while women have also been barred from universities since December 2022.
The article adds that the Taliban’s so-called “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” law, introduced in August 2024, imposed even broader restrictions on women’s movement, dress, public participation, and even their voices. Employment opportunities for women in NGOs, government institutions, and parts of the healthcare sector have also been severely restricted.
Based on UNICEF and UN Women data from 2025, more than 2.2 million Afghanistani girls remain deprived of secondary education, with projections suggesting the number could exceed four million by 2030. The author warns that the systematic exclusion of women from public life is intensifying poverty, forced marriages, and widespread social despair.
The report further states that non-Pashtun ethnic communities, journalists, and former officials of the previous Afghanistan’s republic continue to face intimidation, repression, and persecution conditions that, according to the author, are accelerating radicalization and driving further waves of migration.
Pakistan, which by early 2026 hosted around 932,000 registered Afghanistani refugees, is increasingly confronting the direct consequences of this prolonged instability.
The Eurasia Review article also argues that the Taliban have failed to establish either political or economic stability. Afghanistan remains largely unrecognized internationally, while economic sanctions including Australia’s independent sanctions framework imposed on Taliban officials in December 2025 have deepened the country’s economic crisis. Those sanctions targeted four senior Taliban figures over “repression, human rights abuses, and failures in governance.”
In conclusion, the author argues that the Taliban only confront ISIS-Khorasan when the group threatens Taliban authority itself, while pursuing a policy of tolerance and practical accommodation toward the TTP and al-Qaeda. According to the analysis, this demonstrates that the Taliban continue to prioritize ideological loyalties over responsible state behavior.
The article concludes by noting that the international community has continued to increase pressure on the Taliban, while the United Nations Security Council has extended the mandate of the Taliban sanctions monitoring team through 2027. Nevertheless, the author warns that unless the Taliban dismantle terrorist sanctuaries, restore women’s rights, and move toward an inclusive political system, Afghanistan will remain a source of regional instability rather than a responsible and constructive neighbor.
